One Of The Most Enjoyable Articles I've Worked On Recently
Why Bees Are Your Business
The grower’s most important “employees” on the farm may be the its best-kept secret, and quite possibly someone they will never meet… the beekeeper.
COURTESY OF ROBERT NILES, THE BEE INFORMED PARTNERSHIP
In 2017 it’s likely more
growers have become more dependent on the success of the nation’s
beekeeping industry than ever. Today, loss of habitat, a plethora of
diseases not prevalent in the past, new kinds of bee predators and
economic realities have conspired to create potential pollinator
shortages throughout the United States; these are shortages serious
enough some believe the food security of the nation could be threatened.
How beekeepers and growers respond to
the threats their bees face now and in the future may impact the face of
American agriculture for decades to come. According to the National
Honey Board, about 125,000 beekeepers maintain colonies in the United
States with the “vast majority” of those beekeepers being “hobbyists”
keeping less than 25 hives. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) data
indicates just 2,000 commercial beekeepers (300 or more colonies) are in
operation today.
In Skagit County, Washington, in the
Cascade foothills about 80 miles north of Seattle, Seth Smith and Bruce
Bowen are two of those commercial beekeepers the nation depends on for
pollination services as well as for honey and other bee-based products.
Smith and Bowen have a loose employee/partnership relationship; Smith
works for Bowen as an employee and owns several hundred colonies of his
own.
“Bruce has been in the business for
most of 40 years and knows more about bees than anyone I know,” Smith
said. “Bruce sometimes calls his business ‘A hobby gone wrong,’ and
sometimes I understand exactly what he means. I started what was also
supposed to be just a hobby with two hives in 2008. Those two quickly
became 10 hives then I went to work for Bruce. Somehow we eventually
ended up with about 2,000 colonies between us.”
Pollinators under attack
According to Smith, the current president
of the Skagit Valley Beekeepers Association, the business of beekeeping
is strikingly different in 2017 than it was 40 years ago when Bowen
began tending hives. The work of a beekeeper is more intense and
requires a broader range of skills and knowledge than it used to because
the world has become a very dangerous place for bees in recent decades.
Smith points to his own operation as an example.
“We used to send about 1,200 hives to
the California almond orchards,” he said. “Last year we had bad foraging
weather when the bees really needed to be out making honey. On top of
the bad weather we were hit badly by mites. As a result, this year Bruce
is sending only about 300 colonies and I’ll be sending about 160. That
represents a huge hit in our income for the year. It’s tough to make a
living when that happens.” The balance of the two men’s colonies either
did not survive the winter or was too weakened to be useful in
California.
The mites Smith refers to are a
honeybee-specific parasite, the varroa destructor, that made its way to
the United States from overseas in the late 1980s. The destructor label
is apt; the mite penetrates the bee’s outer body and sucks the bee’s
blood. Bees that aren’t directly killed are left vulnerable to disease.
The mite has been a suspect in at least having a hand in colony collapse
disorder and is directly implicated in the death and destruction of
billions of bees and tens of thousands of hives nationwide. According to
the Bee Informed Partnership, a research organization funded by the
USDA and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, hive losses in
the United States exceeded 40 percent in 2015 and 2016 with winter
losses well above what might have been expected historically.
California almonds drive business
The number of colonies sent to California
is important for beekeepers and for California’s almond growers. For
most commercial beekeepers the year revolves around February when
California’s 800,000-plus acres of almonds begin to bloom. Almond trees
must be insect pollinated so, each year, according to a 2014 report on
the U.S. beekeeping industry published by Montesano, about 1.6 million
of the nation’s 2.6 million honeybee colonies are put to work
pollinating almond orchards; trucks bearing bees arrive from Florida,
the Northeast and from nearly everywhere else in the nation.
To the almond growers a lack of bees
can mean a stunted crop. To beekeepers, the California almond season is
vital because hives rent out for 500 to 600 percent more than they can
be rented for nearly any other crop for the rest of the year; a
significant part of the entire year’s total income for a beekeeper comes
when the California almond trees bloom.
As important as the California season
is to his income, Smith said the need for bees in California represents
good and bad news for commercial beekeepers. Hive rental rates several
times higher than rental rates for other crops needing pollination for
the bulk of the year are great, he said but that opportunity comes with a
downside; bees are subjected to a lot of stress in California.
“Almonds don’t have much nectar so the
bees have to be sent to California with enough nourishment to get them
through the season,” he said. “They don’t make honey pollinating the
almond orchards so they either have to have enough nourishment to take
them through the season or they have to be fed and that means additional
cost.”
“Also, while the bees are in
California, they are out of our hands, (and) we can’t take care of them
the way we’d like to,” Smith said. “They are exposed to other bees so
the healthy colony we sent down can come back infested with mites and
other bee predators or they may have been exposed to insecticides and
have died. The travel itself is stressful and, on top of all that, a lot
of hive theft takes place so it’s possible we’ll never see some of our
hives again.”
A bee’s life post-almond bloom varies
depending on the focus of the beekeeper. Many, if not most, of the
larger commercial operations “follow the bloom” after the almonds are
done so by the end of the pollination season a colony may have been
transported to several locations separated by hundreds or even thousands
of miles. “They go from almonds to fruits trees or, in our area,
blueberries and then raspberries, wherever there is a need for
commercial pollination,” Smith said.” Some beekeepers bring hives home
and rent them out to growers in the local area.
In past years Smith has chosen to
concentrate on honey production rather than following the bloom but even
that path, he said, may be closed to him this year. “I’ve got about 300
hives alive up here,” he said. “I’m going to deemphasize the honey and
work on allowing those colonies to grow without pressure. Once a hive is
healthy it is necessary to split the colony into two hives to prevent
swarming. By winter we should have been able to build our inventory back
up with several hundred healthy colonies ready to go again next year.”
The pollination team
Growers, Smith said, can play an important
role in maintaining the bee health so necessary to healthy populations
of bees ready and able to pollinate; don’t forget, no bees, no crop.
Bees thrive on diversity, Smith said,
suggesting that growers look at diversity in their choice of crops.
“Tens of thousands of contiguous acres all planted in a single crop are
not welcoming to bees,” he said. “There might be plenty of forage while
that single crop is blooming but what happens next? To the bees it’s
like a desert with nothing to eat or drink. You will attract more bees
and produce better crops if you provide for some diversity. When one
crop stops blooming, another comes on with a bloom. It’s better for the
bees and it’s better for the grower.”
Even a simple step, Smith said, can
have a significantly positive impact on bee populations and health. “Let
your dandelions bloom as long as you can,” he said. “They provide
everything a bee needs so as long as they aren’t hurting your crop let
the bees enjoy them.”
Growers also need to do everything
possible to work with their chemical company, beekeepers and local
Extension experts to safely use insecticides, fungicides and other
“cides.” The California Almond Board publication, Honeybee Best
Management Practices for California Almonds provides extensive advice
regarding how to coexist with the honeybee without which there would be
no large-scale almond industry.
The best practices outlined in the
Almond Board document translate to nearly any crop as it stresses
communication between beekeepers, Extension experts and growers at every
stage of the pollination process, careful use of chemicals when
necessary, and, whenever possible, providing alternative foraging
opportunities as the almond bloom draws to a close.
Pollinators help those who help themselves
Growers can also do themselves a favor in
protecting and or enhancing profitability of future crops by providing
habitat and other amenities for home-grown pollinators, especially
alternative pollinators like bumblebees sweat bees and even
hummingbirds. Providing for pollinators can be done with little or no
extra effort but to great effect. Managing land for alternative
pollinators also means the bees you depend on for major pollination can
thrive and leave your farm alive and well, ready to come back next year.
Two publications available online from
the USDA-supported Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education
(SARE) organization, “Cover Cropping for Pollinators and Beneficial
Insects” and “Managing Alternative Pollinators” are well worth a
grower’s time as each publication discusses ways to enhance on-farm
pollination efforts.
For the vast majority of especially
fruit and vegetable growers in the United States, healthy bees and other
pollinators are as fundamental to success as soil management, pest
management and other management needs. The grower looking toward a
successful future will certainly begin to consider the beekeeper to be
one of the most important “employees” he or she has never me
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